Afternoon all, generally speaking as a grandmother I have maintained an approach of never commenting on how my children parent, I’ve always known if I thought it were actually abusive or dangerous I would speak up but In 14 years of being a grandmother that has never happened.
One of my daughters has one child, a lovely 7 year old girl, they don’t live in the uk.
My granddaughter will be 8 in August before school goes back in mid-September here.
We are over visiting for a few weeks and my daughter has been proudly taking me to collect all the things her daughter will need for the next school year.
In conversation I’ve realised, my granddaughter rarely has time to just play.
For example from September her schedule will include, a pre-vocational school for one of her hobbies that is 2 hours (6pm-8pm) 3 nights a week and 2 hours on a Saturday. Tennis lessons (apparently must be private due to scheduling, on the other two nights from 7-8pm). School here finishes at 4pm after which her nanny/governess is expected to have her home, get her a snack, do school homework and English lessons before taking her to the other activities. Dinner doesn’t seem to be until 8.30 most nights if not later, and in the morning she is expected to fit in piano practice before school!
This seems completely stifling and far too much for a small child, would I be unreasonable to mention to my daughter that maybe something like tennis or piano don’t have to happen unless granddaughter really wants to? When will we ever just have time to play? Or relax? Or be bored?